Chapter Twenty-Six Grace
Twenty-Six
Grace
Grace Sullivan: time-traveling domestic goddess. Or something.
She decided on pasta, easy to make romantic with the right sauce. Vegetables that could become a decent salad. Bread that just needed warming. And there, in the back of the cupboard, a jar of Margaret’s preserves that would work perfectly for a makeshift dessert.
Wine was the easy part. The bar was well stocked and Grace was absolutely going to confess to theft tomorrow, but tonight she needed the good stuff. She selected an expensive Pinot Noir.
Sorry, Abe. It’s for a good cause.
Candles. She needed dozens of candles. Grace raided every drawer and cupboard, finding a pack of tea lights and placing them on every surface, every windowsill, transforming the space into something out of a dream. Or a fire hazard. Probably both.
During her search, she’d even found an old record player covered in dust but still functional, from the looks of it.
And next to it, a stack of records in paper sleeves.
Grace flipped through them. Jazz standards from the twenties and thirties, big-band numbers, exactly what she needed.
She selected one—something instrumental—and carefully set the needle.
The sound crackled to life, filling the tower with music from another era.
Perfect.
Back in the kitchen, Grace fell into the rhythm of cooking, the kind of meditative flow she’d always loved about this work. Dice, sauté, taste, adjust. Her hands knew what to do without her brain having to direct them.
Grace was covering the small table with a white cloth when she heard laughter drift up from outside. Zach’s voice and the German girl, both of them cracking up about something outside in the fog.
Her chest tightened with relief. He was okay. Having fun, even. The suspension, the fights, the sullen anger all forgotten. For right now, he was just a fourteen-year-old kid laughing with a girl he liked.
He’d be fine.
We’ll both be fine, Grace told herself, even as doubt whispered in the back of her mind.
She forced herself not to think about the last few hours. About waking up tangled with Reese, about the way he’d looked at her by candlelight, about how he’d kissed her like she was something precious instead of just convenient.
It felt like fantasy. Like they’d stepped outside reality into some bubble where billionaires and single moms could actually work, where competition didn’t matter, where the world was just the two of them in a tower during fog.
But reality was waiting. Tomorrow the fog would probably clear, boats would cross, and they’d go back to being opponents. Back to the real world where Grace was scrambling to make the rent and Reese bought properties like other people bought coffee.
Back to where this—whatever this was—didn’t make sense.
Stop it, Grace told herself firmly. You have tonight. Let yourself have tonight.
She adjusted the feathered headband, smoothed the apron over her dress. “It’s ready, birthday boy!” she called.
Reese climbed down from the attic still wearing the pinstriped suit, dusty and disheveled and utterly gorgeous.
He pushed the ladder back up, then stopped when he saw the room: the candles, the table, the record player spinning its vintage music, Grace standing there in her 1920s costume waiting for him.
“Happy birthday!” she said, smiling even though nerves were tangling in her stomach.
Grace watched his expression shift from surprise to something softer.
“Grace—”
She gestured to the table, suddenly worried this was too much, too presumptuous, too something. “I made do with what was in the kitchen. It’s not fancy, but—”
“It’s spot on,” Reese said, his voice rough.
He crossed to her, cupped her face, kissed her with enough intensity that Grace forgot to breathe. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright in the candlelight.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome. Now sit. I even made dessert. Well, assembled dessert. From things I found.”
They sat at the little table and Grace felt ridiculously proud of what she’d managed. Not to mention Reese in that 1920s suit by candlelight looked like every romantic fantasy she’d never admitted to having.
The suit fit him perfectly. Broad shoulders filling out the jacket, the vest emphasizing his lean waist, the whole thing making him look dangerous and sophisticated and impossibly handsome. His hair was still messed up from her fingers running through it and somehow that just made it better.
He looked like he’d walked out of a black-and-white photograph and into her life.
“You’re staring,” Reese said, amused.
“You look really good in that suit.”
“You look incredible in that dress.” That wolfish smile appeared. “Maybe we should skip supper.”
“Reese Spencer, eat your pasta and drink your wine.” He laughed as Grace raised her glass. “To thirty-seven,” she said. “And to celebrating birthdays, even when you claim you don’t want to.”
“To birthdays,” Reese agreed, clinking his glass against hers. “And to women who don’t take no for an answer.”
“Damn right.”
They ate and talked, Grace telling stories about Zach’s birthday disasters: the time he’d wanted a Batman cake and she’d accidentally made it look more like a bat-shaped blob, the year he’d invited his entire class and only three kids showed up.
“That’s heartbreaking,” Reese said.
“It was. But we made it work. Ordered extra pizza, played ridiculous games, pretended it was exactly what we’d planned.” Grace smiled at the memory. “He still says it was his favorite birthday because he got more cake.”
“Smart kid.”
Grace refilled their wine glasses, the bottle definitely lighter than it should be. “What about you? Best birthday memory?”
Reese was quiet for a moment, turning his wine glass in his hands. The candlelight caught the angles of his face, made the dust on his shoulder look like gold.
“I was ten,” he said finally. “My dad took me fishing. Just the two of us, this lake about an hour from Thunder Bay. We didn’t catch anything but he taught me how to cast properly, told me stories about when he was a kid.
” Reese smiled, but there was something sad in it.
“We got ice cream on the way home. He let me get three scoops even though my mom would’ve said it’d ruin my supper. ”
“That sounds perfect,” Grace said softly.
“It was.” Reese took a drink of wine. “It was also the last birthday I spent with him. Birthdays after that felt—” He shrugged. “—complicated. Every birthday is a reminder I wasn’t enough of a reason for him to want to live.”
Grace reached across the table, covered his hand with hers. “That’s not on you. You know that, right?”
“Intellectually, sure.” Reese turned her hand over, threading his fingers through hers. “But ten-year-old me didn’t see it that way. Ten-year-old me just thought I must’ve done something wrong.”
Grace squeezed his hand and they sat like that for a moment, hands linked across the table, the music playing softly around them. “Do you know why he took his life?”
“Money troubles, maybe. That’s what my mom thinks. What about your dad?” Reese asked.
“He died a few years ago,” Grace said. “Cancer. Pancreatic. He was diagnosed and gone within six months.”
“Grace, I’m sorry. What was he like?”
She smiled. “He was a good dad, a great grandad.” She peered toward the window. “He’d bring me to the island a lot when I was little, teach me about the trees and the wildlife. He’s one of the reasons I love this place so much, I think. He made me see the magic in it.”
She noticed Reese frown slightly. “Sounds like he gave you a gift,” he said.
“He did. But I’d trade it for one more day with him.”
The air between them felt suddenly heavy. This was beginning to feel like more than just a storm-induced fling for Grace. It was beginning to feel like something that could hurt her when it ended.
“Dessert!” she announced, needing to break the moment before she said something stupid like, I’m falling for you. She produced her improvised creation: cookies crumbled over chocolate and preserves with whipped cream. “It’s very thrown together. Don’t judge me.”
“It looks great.”
“It looks like something a drunk person would make at two AM.”
“Even better.”
He pulled her on to his lap and they shared the dessert, Reese stealing bites from her spoon, Grace laughing when whipped cream ended up on his chin.
The candles burned lower, casting shadows that danced across the tower walls.
Outside, the fog pressed close, making the world small and safe and just the two of them.
“Best birthday,” Reese said finally.
Grace settled against his chest, both of them looking out at the fog-shrouded darkness. “Really?”
“Really.” His arms wrapped around her waist, chin resting on her shoulder. “Thank you, Grace.”
“You’re welcome. Everyone deserves to be celebrated.”
They sat like that as the candles burned down, Grace acutely aware of every point of contact: his chest against her back, his arms around her, his breath warm against her neck. The 1920s suit made him feel like someone from another time, like they were existing in a bubble outside reality.
“Grace,” he said, and his voice had gone rough in a way that made her stomach flip.
She should make a joke. Should get off him. Should do literally anything other than what she did, which was close the remaining distance between them.
Their mouths met with an intensity that obliterated thought.
This was need, raw and desperate. Grace pressed against him, felt the solid heat of him, and something inside her just…
ignited. God, she’d forgotten this. Or maybe she’d never felt it quite like this.
This franticness, this urgency, this overwhelming need to get closer, to take more, to have everything.
Years. It had been years since she’d felt desire like this. Since she’d let herself want someone this badly. Single motherhood and exhaustion and just trying to survive had pushed it all down, buried it so deep she’d almost forgotten it existed.
But it existed. Oh, it existed.
Her fingers fumbled with his shirt buttons, needing to feel skin.
He helped her remove the layers—jacket, vest, shirt—then he yanked her dress down, exposing her breasts so they were skin to skin.
She unzipped his pants, pulled him out. She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear, and whispered the words that had been building all day: “I want to do what comes after ‘everything but.’ ”
Reese went very still. Then he pulled back to look at her, and there was something almost feral in his expression.
“You sure?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No doubt. “Yes, I’m sure.”
The sound he made—somewhere between a growl and a groan—sent heat straight through her. Then he was lifting her, hands gripping her thighs as he carried her toward the bed, and Grace wrapped her legs around his waist and thought, Finally, finally, finally.
He pulled her dress up, pressing his hand between her legs, stroking her. “Just to be clear,” he said, voice all gravel, “you want my cock, inside you, right here.” He pressed his huge thumb inside her as she bit her lip.
“Yes,” she gasped.
He maneuvered himself so the tip of his hardness throbbed against her folds. “Say it properly. Tell me what you want, Grace.”
Grace’s breath hitched. “I want you inside me.”
“You sure? Anne Boleyn so wouldn’t approve.” His green eyes were mischievous.
“Please—” Her hips lifted, trying to take him in. “Please, Reese. I need you inside me. Now.”
He sat back. Grabbed his wallet from his sweats and pulled out the condom. Rolled it on with his fingers as Grace watched, her gaze tracking every movement.
“Done staring?” he asked.
“Not even close.”
He positioned himself between her legs and sank into her—slow, so achingly slow. The first inch was a stretch, a fullness that made her think, Oh. Right. This. I remember this.
Another inch, and she gasped against his shoulder as Reese watched her face like he was memorizing every expression, every catch of breath.
Show-off, she wanted to say, except she couldn’t actually form words because—
Deeper. God.
Grace had convinced herself she didn’t need this. Had spent years telling herself that sex was overrated anyway, that she had more important things to worry about.
Turned out, she’d been lying to herself.
Another inch and she was making sounds she didn’t recognize, her nails digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks. He was filling spaces inside her she’d forgotten existed. Not just physically, though, Christ, the physical was—
“Grace,” Reese groaned against her neck as he paused, his voice strained. “You feel so good.”
“If you stop now I will actually murder you,” she managed, and felt him laugh against her skin.
“Not stopping.” Another slow thrust, deeper still. “Couldn’t if I wanted to.”
When he was finally seated fully inside her, they both went still. Grace felt full and stretched and connected in a way that made her want to either cry or laugh or possibly both.
“Move,” she whispered, then added because she couldn’t help herself: “Unless you’re planning to just camp inside me all night like some kind of weird billionaire squatter—”
He moved. And Grace forgot how to be sassy altogether.